14 Responses to “How I Cured My Slide”

Boy, is this ever the best tip for a slider like me. I still keep reminding myself of touching my legs, especially the moment I push a ball. I have been doing this slide move for decades, so it took me a long, long time to “cure” it too. I duck-hooked, push-faded and pushed the ball off the planet. Frustrated, I could NOT fix the slide. Then Paul came into my life and cured it with this tip. It’s still something I think about. So, warning: continue to monitor your weak areas. They can creep up and bite you again. Now we know how to cure this dreaded fault quickly. Thanks, Paul!

Paul, did you play rounds of golf while working on significantly altering your swing? If so, how did you not bring that “fixing” mentality to the course and get uber-frustrated to the point of wanting to quit th e\\e game?

Yes, I played while working on it. It was a disaster. I still do this sometimes as I rarely play and want to work on something. So when these thoughts creep into my head I need to tell myself to get over it and work on it at home in practice swings or at the range. This is why I keep telling everyone to just do the practice swings every day. This is the best and fastest way to get it.

Also, just doing the grip, setup and follow through works great because you cannot do the follow through if you do it wrong at impact. So anytime you lose it out there or get too many thought go back to that and slow down to no more than 50%. If it is super bad just pick out one thing and do it. Then you will have at least done 1 thing instead of nothing.

I know all about quitting. I did quit for 2 years it was so bad. That was after hitting 1,000 balls per day every day for over 2 years and still hitting it sideways. So I have been in everyone’s shoes at some point. This is why I teach what I teach and am passionate about it.

Thank you so much for your reply. The playing-rounds-while-working-on-swing is a significant “concept” and major point of frustration for all golfers.

Please do a video on your experience and how you continued to enjoy playing with buddies, but worked on swing (during rounds, just at home not hitting balls, on range, etc.) to become a better ball striker and consistent golfer. I can assure you, we all struggle with this (fixing while playing).

Yes, this is tough. The problem is people want immediate results. This stuff takes time but if you actually focus on one thing and do it then you get a sense of accomplishment. Once you do, you move on to the next and so on. I will ass it to the tips list.

Thanks for sharing your pain Paul! It is greatly appreciated as we all try to get rid of our old, bad habits and apply your new body swing. Practice, practice & practice some more – it is highly frustrating to divest ourselves of bad habits (that let us get away with most shots – or ‘good misses’ as I call them), when trying to incorporate good body swing habits into our game. You must get to a place where you can ‘trust’ your swing to regain confidence.

That is one morsel of pain I experienced. I will tell the whole story at some point in the near future.

Yes, practice is key but practicing the right way. This means way more practice swings way less hitting golf balls. No ball means no hit. So you can actually make the changes. Once you make the changes and have a great swing then add more balls.

So know the positions and the checkpoints. Grip, setup, follow through first. Get this alone and you will hit it better than you ever have in hour life. I have proven this time and time again. You can do it.

COLIN MONTGOMERY teached you to “bump your left hip forwards” ,so he was a slider ,but also an excellent golfer .
The slide worked for him.
He had a very elegant swing
For those who have difficulties in transferring their weight from the back leg to the front leg ,the ” bump ” may help !

He sure was a slider and a great player but he probably hit easily a million balls with that swing. The average person may hit a bucket a week so they will never get it doing this move.

Many years ago, I taught the bump for about 2 weeks. Every single person i taught it to hit severe pushes. After seeing that I vowed to never again tell anyone to do that. What’s worse a 20 yard pull or pushing it a 50-100 yards?

Sliding too much tilts you too much so you will hit pushes and push fades. So you watch your ball. If you see these shots you know you are overtilted behind it. If this occurs you switch your focus to the touch the legs position. If you are trying to touch the legs you would be turning more instead of shifting. This is the goal. You need to get the angle so you never had to think about it. I am certainly not trying to tilt. I know I do this every time. I am focused on firing my lower getting me to the follow through. You might have to manually get the tilt by working on it.